The government is set to revitalize its family planning (KB) program as roughly 4.5 million new babies, equal to 85% of Singapore's population, are born in the country annually.
The government's target population growth rate is 1.1 percent, whereas it currently sits at 1.49 percent.
The head of the national population and family planning board (BKKBN), Surya Chandra Surapaty, said that Indonesia's growth rate of 1.49 percent per year was worrying, especially if such massive growth was not accompanied by global manpower competitiveness.
"The population growth rate of 1.49 percent means Indonesia has 4.5 million new babies [each year], equaling Singapore's population. If [we look at] a 10 year period, that's 10 Singapores," he said after a meeting with President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, as quoted by kompas.com.
The fastest growth rates, he further elaborated, were recorded in East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, Maluku and in Riau Islands. It is feared that the babies were going to be a low-income, low-skilled generation since they were mostly born in under-developed or poor regions.
Lack of education is listed as one reason why the KB program failed in those regions. To combat this, the President approved a KB pilot village in West Java set to be inaugurated in January 2016, Surya said.
The BKKBN will also launch several programs to control population growth and at the same time improve the quality of the "prosperous families" program, the children's education campaign and the parenting campaign. (ags)